Guarded Thoughts, Secret Hearts
by BlueGreenApples
Summary: Canon. Multi Pairing Drabbles. May Contain Spoilers Ch 405 . Dark hearts, hard hands. They are shinobi.
1. Dummy

**Manga Chapter: **405

**Character(s): **Tsunade, Jiraiya

**Pairing: **JiraTsu

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**Dummy**

It took all of Tsunade's monstrous strength to make it into a barren stretch of hallway before the tears came. Things were flying apart again and she wasn't sure her old heart could take it. Jiraiya. Gods, why him as well? When would it be her turn? She was so, so tired of being the one left behind. Hot moisture trekked down her pseudo-youthful face as the heaving breaths set in. Her proud shoulders fell to a level reserved for the mourning as her amber eyes screwed shut. Air hissed in through her gritted teeth as she fought for a semblance of control. The cool temperature exuded by the surface of the wall beside her melted slowly through her long hair to her burning scalp. As it prickled across her nerves, she tried to reason with herself.

The fool knew before he started the fight that his death was a possibility. He had to have known. Her teammate had been a lot of things in his life, but stupid was not one of them. That thought turned out to be the wrong one to pursue. Soon little snippets of days long gone were spilling in again. His hair had been so short when they met, nothing like the flowing mane it is--was now. The tense change made her want to curl into herself, to numb the ache he was leaving somehow. She could see his rugged face and devilish grin peering back at her from a hundred times and places. Emotion was rising, choking her. But then a high, cocky voice was ringing in her head, the one she'd forgotten had ever been his. "Nice to meet you...I'm Jiraiya! You can send me a love letter later!"

A feeble epithet spilled from her painted lips at the memory...because there are some love letters that Tsunade wishes she'd written.


	2. Shroud

**Manga Chapter: **408

**Character(s): **Sasuke Uchiha, Itachi Uchiha

**Pairing: **None

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**Shroud**

Circumstance had a way of altering mindsets. It was strange, Sasuke thought, that a material object could have such polar connotations for his psyche. When he shrugged on a cloak adorned with bloody clouds, he cannot help but remember a time that the stylized shapes would have inspired rage. Now he grazes a callous-hard palm over one of the embellishments and feels righteous. His brother: the mad prodigy, the annihilator, the reluctant weapon of a corrupt Village...would be avenged. A seldom-used muscle in his jaw ticked while his left cheek dimpled shallowly. He was an excellent avenger, after all. What was this mission in place of the other? New facts had been revealed and a rather abrupt change of plan had been required. It was almost too easy to set himself on this alternate path.

A part of him, the same one responsible for his seaside mourning, gave an disconcerting lurch. It was as if something older than his physical body throbbed at the thought of further sacrifice and violence. Sasuke wondered caustically if it was his soul. A deep breath and a mental exercise rid him of any further complaint. It was getting easy to shut obstacles out of his mind and his efficient personality revelled in it. The calm _tak-tak_ of his shinobi sandals was easy to concentrate on. Easy to control. Funnelling his concentration into the placement of his feet served to derail his mode of thought from its morbid track. He had a mission to see to, anyway, and inner monologue would only crowd his head.

Nevertheless, a reluctant calm had settled such that Sasuke nearly frowned when a metallic ring seeped into his awareness. Settling a level gaze onto the source of the commotion, he titled his head. Suigetsu had a ninja pinned to a high, chain link fence and was effectively restricting the man's air supply all while snarling questions. The thuggish effort was only bolstering resistance in the captive, though the swordsman had yet to notice. How typical. The situation wasn't a complete waste, however, Sasuke decided as he effortlessly read the man's posture and visage. Fear was practically wafting off the man in thick, heady drafts. Cool confidence melded into his voice as he let his eyes slip shut in preparation. He softly murmured, "A fearful heart can be exploited."

Stepping forward, the serpentine hiss of sand and dirt beneath his foot anchored him as he delved into his chakra reserve. There was an indescribable sensation building behind his eyes while he heard the oh so expected exclamation of his soon to be victim. Terror was so easy to instill upon the weak. Pure power was filling his head as he readied his illusion, the familiar paths followed by his searing chakra were catching fire in a most delectable way. One lid flicked back lazily to reveal his brother's posthumous gift and the trap was sprung. The entire technique would only take a moment, but he loathed the sensation of dipping into another's consciousness. Disgust curled lazily in his abdomen at the shinobi's inner thoughts. It was a simple matter to dredge up gory ends for the loved ones and precious people he discovered there. A mere handful of careful prompts later and the man was spilling his _carefully guarded_ information. Satisfied, Sasuke let his eye slide shut once more. His fingers found the high collar of his shirt as he addressed his team. "Let's go."

Sasuke's stare barreled outward as he stalked toward his objective. He was embarking on a mission larger than the one that involved the eight-tails bijou. His feet were finding Itachi's path. Now he bore the Uchiha emblem beneath an Akatsuki cloak. It seemed fitting, he decided. Righteous.


	3. Worth

**Manga Chapter:** 413, 414

**Character(s):** Sasuke Uchiha, Juugo, Suigetsu, Karin, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno

**Pairing(s):** None

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**Worth**

Sasuke held few things in high regard. There was power, of course; that was a latent goal left over from the bitter crusade that had only recently ended. And there was intelligence, as he had no use for the ignorant or idiotic. The list was short and mostly composed of attributes he told himself that he personally possessed. Few of them were what others would call true virtues. He saw no real practicality in such frivolous things. Objectively, Sasuke knew that his logic and resulting manner made him an unconventional and perhaps unpleasant person.

Therefore, he was at a loss when it came to the people who depended upon him so wholly. His teams, first his Genin cell and now Hawk, were so content to place their livelihood in his bloody hands. Why? What did they see that he couldn't feel? What was it about him that inspired this trust and faith? How had he earned it?

He'd first thought it was a shallow thing: his clan was a well established, widely known one. Perhaps it was the enigmatic fan on his nape that instilled their loyalty. But the Uchiha name was only so far reaching and his newest comrades were from foreign lands where it held no sway. Maybe then it was his strength; that well of power that he'd cultivated for a ruined goal. But his first team, foolish and weak as they had been, had known him when he was just an angry child. Thoughts of the village of his birth reminded him of the time he'd spent there, inevitably. He remembered at last the hordes of insipid females. His face had been the root of that and he wondered fleetingly if something as plebeian as that had bridged the nin he'd met to himself. The pair of kunoichi who sprung to mind, so similar and yet so different, had certainly made mention of his 'handsome' looks. Did the face of his heritage, so like the man he'd hated so strongly, bring the worth they placed in him? Was it so...plebeian and simple? So flippant?

How could they think him comely when he was so filthy? So soaked in blood. Figuratively, of course, he amended as he thought of the crisp white shirt beneath his robe. His toll was low, he knew, for a shinobi of his caliber. For a nukenin. Orochimaru had mocked his reserved hand, but what had it really mattered in the end? Itachi had still fallen and here he stood. Blood red down to his fratricide eyes.

Macabre patterns were etched into his skin, he could almost perceive them with his cursed irises. Brown red and careless in their spatter, the scrawl itched over his aristocratically pale skin. A clan's blood. _His brother's blood._ Was that why they founded their bonds to him? Was that how they justified his worth? His morbid history, lain into his skin like some primitive tattoo...surely they saw it. Did they think him capable? Dangerous? Advantageous?

And yet here they were, this most recent team he'd built. Suigetsu was lying down his life to offer he and the rest a chance at escape. Escape from the problem he, Sasuke the Stained, had created. His fault. Juugo's selfless donation of curse flesh was melting, meshing into his system with sickly, painful ease. The weakness in his destroyed chest gave him something to focus on, something to feel. Karin's worried face swam past his vision before he felt his bloodline limit engage and emotion pour into his hazed mind.

Team Hawk's sacrifices cycled through his psyche as his mental barrier eroded, leaving the forgotten and forbidden to flow in. Juugo, a berserker with so little sanity left...Karin, who'd been afforded no favors in her short, hard life...Suigetsu, the maverick swordsman who claimed nothing but a score to settle...

Worth. Was he worthy? Why did they care? Why couldn't he truly sever his bonds? Why did he care? Why? _Why?_ **Why?** Juugo. Suigetsu. Karin. Kakashi. Naruto. Sakura. _**Why?**_

Young, forcibly repressed images flashed before his mental eye. Team Seven. The first bonds he'd formed as a ninja, those tenacious strings of fate that refused to be severed. Something was building behind his eyes, cresting and washing in as the thoughts whirled. A word, a command slipped past his lips. "Amaterasu!"

He was not the boy who abandoned Konoha any longer. He was stronger, bloodier, jaded, old, fraying. Stained.

He was Sasuke Uchiha and he acknowledged the bonds that forged him.


	4. Catharsis

**Manga Chapter: 415+**

**Character(s): Sakura, Sasuke**

**Pairing: (onesided) SasuSaku**

Sakura is a kunoichi.

She knows that sometimes the nin around her seem to forget it, especially those who'd known her as a child. But there is the simple fact that she's passed her trials-just as they had-and now stands shoulder to shoulder with the rest. Her heart might have been lost ages ago to a loveless boy, but fact is fact and no one can rob her of the title.

They question her logic and her lingering care. But they cannot dissuade her when the time comes to face her greatest demon down. When the day arrives that she must see exactly what it is her love has become. She sees him across a gulf of stone and for a moment her heart ceases to beat. He is at once so much the same and so, so very _different_. It's as if the body of the boy she'd cared for had been supplanted with some primordial darkness.

She did not want to believe what burned behind his eyes.

But she would not stop now. She would not allow this to go further. Because she's staring down the worst thing she's ever had to learn as a kunoichi. The mud and the blood and the killing she could take. The entrails and the senseless violence and the never-ending parade of injured and dying...Some days she can even cope with the absence of her teammate, made real so long ago for the sake of power.

Because even as she'd arrived, she'd realized that she could accept his corruption as long as there was a hope that he could be saved.

And then she'd seen his eyes. It is then she knows. Sakura has found a sad reality: The loss of a teammate can be manifested in countless ways, cruel and kind. Sometimes they fall to a nin you can mark for revenge. Sometimes they settle into civilian life and slowly fade from your routine. But the most horrid of these possibilities is the one Sasuke has chosen. Because sometimes your comrades _make the choice themselves_.

They turn away and walk willingly from the light, into deep darkness. Sometimes they lose themselves to the very power they seek. They abandon all that you've been taught is good without a care. And it _hurts _to be the one to stand and watch.

It is a most morbid sort of sensation as she feels the love she had for him at once _grow _and _shudder_. She sees his ravaged expression and wants to weep for him. She wants to gather him to herself and cry until they're both purged of the pitch that's seeping into his soul. Some hysterical little part of her screams that she can save him _if only-but-because_ and Sakura knows she cannot listen. She knows what she must do.

Because Sakura is a kunoichi.

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**I re-read a bit of the manga. I still love Sakura's character and Sasuke's still breaks my heart a little. Teh ANGST! **

**A lot of drabbles and the next chapter of CT are in the works, getting back into the swing of writing-for-pleasure is taking a while. **

**Thanks for reading :)**


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